Hadley and Kade rushed to the main door and skid to a stop when three gigantic metallic humanoid monsters walked into The Lodge. The two metal giants in the back were carrying large storage boxes that they gently placed on the shiny tiled floor with uncharacteristic grace. The metal giant at the front, which wasn't carrying anything, threw its hands out, threw its head back and bellowed.

"We have passengers! That only took five years!" came the booming voice, reverberating against the walls of The Lodge, even rattling the glass room. It then looked back down at Hadley and Kade, who had their hands pressing against their ears.

"Oops, soz!" The metal giant spoke softer, its hands covering its mouth in an apologetic gesture. Then it tip toed in place excitedly. "Welcome to the family you two!"

"Who are you?" Kade asked.

"Are you human?" Hadley added.

The metallic creature bent forward, pointing one hand to itself.

Then it scoffed.

The shiny metallic form with a rigid helmet face scoffed!

"Am I human?"

It then stood up straight – hands on its side, face suddenly stoic – and then its torso began to split open. A human jumped from a plush, shaped-foam seat inside the machine, flipping in mid-air before landing with spectacular grace.

"I'm definitely human," they said, standing up and smiling wide. They had dishevelled black hair, fair skin, striking grey eyes, high cheekbones, and soft pink lips. They also looked much younger than Kade and Hadley. "How has your stay at The Lodge been? Sorry we're late. The weather's been keeping us away."

They moved forward and shook Hadley's hand and then Kade. "Hello Hadley, hello Kade, I'm Jax. And these two are Screech and Leo."

The torsos of the other two metallic creatures opened to reveal the ones who drove them. Like Jax, they too were just teenagers.

"You're The Architects?" Kade said in disbelief.

"They still call us that?" Jax said with a laugh. "That's cute."

"You're young," Hadley observed.

"We're much older than we look," one of the others, Leo, replied with a smile and a wink. Jax cocked their head at Hadley and narrowed their eyes. "I've seen those blue eyes before. A long, long time ago. But I thought Kitari scorched that experiment."

An arrival interrupted them. This time what entered the room was a human-scale metallic creature. Hadley took a step back. Kade took a step forward, moving in front of Hadley.

"Oh! That's Daisy! No need to be scared of her," Jax said all cheerily. "She's been taking care of you these last couple of weeks."

"Hello Jax." the creature said, its unhuman voice sending chills up Hadley's spine. The creature then looked up at her. "My apologies for the interruption."

The creature, Daisy, had modified her voice to a less frightening timber and tone, as if responding to Hadley's reaction.

"That's alright, dear," Jax said.

"I just wanted to apologize in person for losing you your one trillion dollar bet that you could turn Hadley and Kade into a romantic couple in three weeks." Daisy said as a matter of fact.

Jax went red. "What? I have no idea what you're talking about, Daisy!"

"You made the bet with..." before Daisy could continue, Jax was opening up a panel on its body, pulling Daisy's attention. "What are you doing, Jax?"

"Oh, nothing, Daisy," Jax replied as he pulled out a few wires from inside the panel. When they were done, they turned to Hadley and Kade with a wide grin. "There, that's better. Ignore her, she was... malfunctioning."

"I am not malfunctioning, Jax," Daisy continued. "And I told you that the picnic was a rubbish idea."

"Daisy!" Jax exclaimed, opening Daisy's panel again and switching up more wires. They turned to Hadley and Kade, looking a lot more flushed. "Too many switched wires. Ignore her."

"You should have definitely let me put the sex toys in their room," Daisy continued. "Mints on pillows do nothing!"

"Oh my god, Daisy!" this time when they dove into the panel, Jax pulled out a fist sized glass sphere with a red, green and blue swirling glow. Jax laughed, rubbing the back of their head as they looked back at Hadley and Kade. "Synthetic Souls – you can never predict their evolution, especially the sassy ones, am I right?"

All the while the two giant metal monsters had been laughing in the background, and one was slapping its knee, fully guffawing.

Hadley turned to Kade, her brow raised, not sure how to feel.

She turned back to Jax to find them fishing another sphere, this one glowing orange, yellow and purple, and shoved it into Daisy's panel. When they shut the panel, the metal creature looked up and nodded.

"Hello Jax," the metallic creature said in a completely new, more masculine, but still stilted voice. It turned to the others. "Hello Hadley, Kade, Screech and Leo. My name is Rhododendron."

"Nice to meet you, Rhody!" Jax exclaimed. "We'll be leaving in a few minutes, but in the meantime, you can... I don't know... polish a few spoons or something?"

"Yes Jax!"

The creature walked away toward the kitchen.

"Alright, where were we?" Jax said, pocketing the red, blue, green sphere that was somehow Daisy. "Ah, yes. Those gorgeous, magnificent blue eyes."

They took out a strange object from their pocket and used it to scan Hadley.

"What exactly is happening here?" Hadley finally demanded to know.

"Well, from what I can tell, you're genetically modified," Jax said, genuinely curious. They looked down at their wrist where their skin pulled away to reveal a screen. "First from birth, which gave you those stunning blue eyes, and a few other nifty things. Then later. In fact, only a few months ago. This final modification gave you your blood. And what an interesting compound it is. I've never seen anything like it! We'll study it more on the Ark."

The Ark?

"No." Kade said, suddenly stern. "You're not going to experiment on her! That's not why we're here."

"Experiment? You think I'd experiment on a human?" Jax looked surprised, almost offended. "I said we'd study her blood, not her. That blood has qualities in it that I believe can help others. And I would only do it with her consent, Kade."

"All I want is a safe place for my daughter and I," Hadley said, walking up between Kade and Jax, though her voice wasn't as confident as she would have liked. Too many places that she'd thought would be a new home for them had turned out to be hellscapes in their own right. And at Jax's words, the image of this new home was already showing cracks. However, she couldn't deny that she'd been curious about her blood as well. Ruq had failed to turn her into a vampire, but she wasn't fully human either. "If it's with my consent and I'm involved in the study, then maybe we can work together to figure my blood out. But only after my daughter is born."

"Daughter?" Jax asked, curiously.

"I'm pregnant," Hadley explained. They should have caught that from the onset. Her belly was already quite prominent. Sticking out from under her T-shirt.

"Yeah, I got that," Jax said, looking at her belly. They were about to say something else, but Kade interrupted them.

"Okay, what happens now?" Kade asked.

Jax turned to him. They smiled, seeming excited to finally get to this part. They pointed at the large boxes the other two metal giants had brought in. One of the giants was sitting with its hugging its knees to its chest and the other was casually leaning against the wall, both just curiously watching Hadley, Kade and Jax.

"First, we'll restock The Lodge with new food, for any new passengers who come next time. Then we'll go harvest from the food forest we maintain a few kilometres from here to restock the Ark with fresh fruit and then we can leave." Jax said. Their eyes shone before they spoke up again. "You know what? You're welcome to join and help us. More hands, less work!"

They spent the day restocking pantry shelves, taking turns driving what they learnt were exoskeleton robots and being introduced to more robots ran by other Synthetic Souls like Daisy and Rhododendron. They maintained The Lodge and were the ones responsible for secretly cleaning up after Hadley and Kade, bringing them fresh fish and fruit, and rearranging the glass room that whole time.

The day ended with a walk to a forest nearby to harvest fruit for the Ark, which is what they called the larger water vessel out in the middle of the ocean. This forest was nothing like the rest of the rainforest that the Wildlings maintained as natural as they could. This was a manicured park-like orchard landscape, almost identical to the Compound's food forests, maintained by yet more Synthetic Soul robots. The robots had already harvested most of the fruit and packed them in massive wooden crates, and they'd also crafted several wooden barrels and filled these with aging wine from the dozens of fruits growing in the space.

As they walked back to The Lodge, Hadley was deep in thought. It was starting to sink in that this was her last day on land, and she was nervous, apprehensive and a little afraid. There was doubt somewhere in there too and a whole other host of emotions she was trying to disentangle and process. Distracted by her thoughts, Hadley bumped into Kade when he suddenly stopped in front of her.

Someone was blocking their trail.

"Hello, Hadley, Kade," Anette said. She looked up at one of the exoskeletons carrying a stack of fruit-filled wooden crates. "Jax."

An army of Scavengers on hovering vehicles, clad from head to toe in their strange fully concealing clothes and helmets stood behind her.

"Hermetically sealed pressure suits with their own oxygen supply and the ability to survive in vacuum, while still being light and stylish. A little too retro for me, but still impressive. Resourceful." Jax said from inside their robotic exoskeleton. They'd changed their deep, booming voice to sound a little more than intimidating. "Hello Anette. I see you and your father have made progress. I'm digging the hover bikes. Nice touch."

"You may have locked her in your gilded prison to keep her from me and made me wait weeks for you to open that stupid door, but you know I can't let you keep her, Jax." Anette replied, her frustration barely held back.

"Hadley is seeking asylum with The Architects, as she has every right to," Jax replied. "And I'm obliged to help her."

Anette twisted and pulled off her helmet. It came off with a hiss. Hadley tried to hide her shock at seeing the face that had haunted many of her nightmares. But this time, the eye-patched Healer wasn't wearing an eyepatch. Her right eye was a dark brown, but the left eye, the one she usually covered, wasn't injured, or missing, which is what Hadley had expected. It was perfectly fine.

But it was as blue.

The exact same blue of Hadley's eyes!

"This has nothing to do with helping her, and you know it!" Anette shot back. "I know you've scanned her. I know you've seen her blood."

Anette turned to face Hadley.

"Hadley, did they tell you that all they want to do is study your blood and find out what makes you so special?" Anette asked Hadley, like she'd just revealed some huge secret to hurt Hadley.

"Actually, they did. They asked, and we came to an agreement." Hadley replied, happy to see the smug look disappear from Anette's eyes. "What they didn't do was kidnap me, lock me up in an underground clinic, sedate me, and then start drawing blood from me without my consent. And they didn't kill my friends!"

"I didn't kill your friends, Hadley," Anette said. She took out a small tablet, pressed a few buttons on its screen and shoved it up against Hadley. "Jamila's just fine, see?"

On the screen, Jamila was sitting on a table, surrounded by most of the others who'd left The Caves with them, including Brielle, Chasina, Max, Lulu, Kilo and Chaz.

Hadley's heart skipped a beat before it started up again, pounding her sternum.

Jamila was alive!

She'd escaped death, yet again!

Hadley wanted to ask about Ruqwik, even though her mind warned her not to give Anette the ammunition of that vulnerability, but before she could, Jax spoke up.

"You could have recorded that at any time," Jax said.

Anette pressed a button on her suit's wrist. "Nadia? Could you please go ask Jamila how her day is going?"

Hadley watched as the camera moved closer to the table.

"Hi Jay," said a tinny voice through the tablet.She'd called her Jay, not Jamila. "How's your day going?"

"Hey Nadia," Jamila replied with a soft smile. "It's much better, now that you're here."

Nadia laughed and Anette took back the tablet with a chuckle.

"I'd say your girlfriend is the complete opposite of dead, wouldn't you?"

Hadley grit her teeth. "If you hurt her..."

"I won't hurt her. And if you come with me, you can make sure of it." Anette replied with a shrug.

"There's a place for you at the Ark, Hadley," Jax said. "A safe haven for you and your child."

Anette scoffed.

"They may have told you about the blood study, but did the pretentious prick tell you that they're part of an elitist society of clones replicating themselves over and over again and that any useful information they glean from you will be patented, hoarded and shared only with his other elitist pretentious prick clone friends, and kept away from the rest of humanity in order to preserve their elitist status?" Anette spat.

There was a beat of silence before Jax answered with a sudden ice-cold snap to their voice.

"The world is an intricate balance of haves and have-nots, Anette. I thought you and Barret, of all people, understood that!" Jax said. They softened their voice. "My offer from last time still stands. You are more than welcome to join us on the right side of that equation."

Anette turned back to Hadley.

"It's up to you, Hadley," Anette said. "The Devil you know, or the Angel you don't. Your choice."

Hadley didn't know what the words "Devil" or "Angel" meant, but she did know when she was in a 'rock-and-a-hard-place' kind of situation. Hadley turned to Kade.

"I can't help you make this choice, Hadley," Kade said, shaking his head before he turned to face Anette. "But I can tell you that Barret Fisher cannot be trusted."

Trust?

After everything she'd been through, Hadley had learnt that no one could be trusted beyond the Compound walls. Not really. Kade saying that didn't help.

This boiled down to the one thing both parties wanted more than anything.

Her blood.

...twenty years ago, Wildlings were pushed to the brink of war with vampires. My daughter couldn't imagine birthing her child into a world embroiled in war, especially when she had the power to stop the war from ever starting. She sacrificed everything, choosing to kill her partner, the one stoking the fires of war. But it blew back onto her, and I lost my daughter, and thus, my granddaughter. Or so I'd thought... until you walked into our tribe, Hadley.

Hadley's blood was a weapon that could undoubtedly bring war between humans and vampires. And it was true that Hadley could stop it by running to a floating city far away from everything that she was and everyone that she loved. However, by making that choice, her daughter would wake up one day, twenty years from now, wondering why she didn't fit in with those around her, alone and broken and resentful of Hadley for taking her away from her true home.

No.

Aadya had made the wrong choice and doomed her daughter.

Hadley wouldn't make the same mistake!

"I'll come with you, Anette," Hadley finally said. "But everything that happens from here on end happens on my terms. Terms that I will only discuss with Barret Fisher."

"Are you sure, Hadley?" Kade asked, clearly disapproving her choice.

"I'm sure." Hadley nodded, before looking up at the exoskeleton holding crates of fruit. "But if Fisher and I don't come to an agreement, will you wait for me, Jax? Because I'll come right back."

The exoskeleton nodded.

"We can wait another month before we need to leave again. But I know Barret Fisher," Jax said. With a wink and a nod, they added, "See you soon, Hadley."

Jax nodded and Hadley walked towards the Scavengers. She tamped down on the ire building up inside her from the shit-eating grin on Anette's face.

Hadley inwardly sighed.

She was doing this for her daughter.

Her ego would just have to suck it up and accept it.

"I'm coming too." Kade suddenly said, joining Hadley.

"Oh, look. A two for one special." Anette announced.

Hadley turned to Kade and was about to reprimand him for missing out on a chance to leave this hell behind, especially now that he was probably at the top of the Wildling Council's shit list, but one look at his face and it was clear there was going to be no way to convince him otherwise. She should have known. They'd both seen the screen and Kade would never leave without Brielle. If Hadley was being completely honest, she didn't mind having his company for what was to come next.

...the greatest meaning of a father is felt in his absence. His absence becomes the part of you that you find most difficult to connect with or to understand. And it plagues you forever...

It was about time Hadley finally met Barret Fisher, her father.